Laurie Hawn

[Counter-Drug Operations, February 18th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, today we welcome home the crews of HMCS Toronto and two Aurora surveillance planes.

They have been working through the past month with the U.S. Coast Guard in the Caribbean Sea on a counter-drug operation called Op CARIBBE. They intercepted 1,650 kilograms of cocaine worth $33 million. The men and women from HMCS Toronto prevented these drugs from entering Canada and other North American communities.

Since Op CARIBBE started in 2006, over 1,000 metric tons of illegal drugs have been prevented from entering Canada, the United States and other countries.

Canadians can be proud of the impressive ability of the Canadian Forces to work with other nations to tackle problems like illegal drugs which challenge our safety and security.

[Business of Supply, February 17th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I will not have enough time to refute the legion of things that were wrong in my hon. colleague's statement.

An expert is someone who agrees with you. In the Liberals' case, one of the experts they are relying on is someone who has not been part of the process for six years. The process has evolved beyond that. They continually quote numbers that relate to the American program and not Canada's program. They continually mislead Canadians on that fact, and they do it so often it cannot be accidental.

Yes, the purchase of the F-35s is an ideological decision, and the ideology behind it is to give the men and women of the Canadian Forces the tool they need to do the jobs we will give them over the next 40 years. That is our ideology: to equip the men and women of the Canadian Forces, to keep Canadian industry current, and to give them the tools they need to survive and to do their jobs at home and abroad.

The information on the visits was given, so the hon. member has completely misstated the facts. The Liberals do have the information on the number of visits that were made by the experts. The process we followed in Canada was the same as the process followed in nine other countries. The experts all came to the same conclusion. It is not an accident that the F-35 was chosen.

The member and his party should get onboard, stop misleading Canadians and get with the program they started. This is the common sense evolution of that program.

Get on with it.

[February 9th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, we are very careful about the people whom we employ to look at these projects. We have some of the best minds, the most experienced people with the most expertise, military and civilian, who looked at all the other airplanes and spoke with us.

Of course, the other manufacturers are going to say they can meet the requirements. They are salesmen. That is what they do. That is why we hire people who can examine it and give us the kind of advice we need with no agenda. Their only agenda is to give the Canadian Forces the best equipment they can at the best price. By the way, it also gives Canadian industry the best possible opportunities for participation to create jobs for the next 20, 30, 40 years.

We are going to fly this airplane until past 2050. We have an obligation to give the Canadian Forces the best equipment possible to do the jobs we give them, and that is what we are doing.

[February 9th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for St. John's East for giving me the opportunity to bring further clarity to this issue.

First, as a key component of our Canada first defence strategy, the Chinook helicopters are the right aircraft for the Canadian Forces and will provide our men and women in uniform with an essential capability they need to carry out their important work either here, at home or overseas. The Chinooks currently deployed to Afghanistan have proven invaluable to the mission and are saving lives every day.

Second, to say that the department broke any rules on sole sourcing is patently false. The advanced contract award notice, or ACAN, is a fair, open and transparent procurement instrument that fully complies with Treasury Board rules.

Furthermore, Treasury Board accepted that full estimates for in-service support of the Chinooks were not available when it authorized definition work to begin. These costs cannot be fully known until the aircraft are in service. The department provided complete estimates before Treasury Board gave its implementation approval and the procurement took place within well-established Treasury Board guidelines.

As indicated in the report of the Auditor General, the Department of National Defence agrees with the recommendations and is taking action to address each one. Now that we have addressed the situation with the Chinook, I would like to talk about the procurement of the F-35.

The member opposite would like to try to compare the acquisition process of the Chinook with that of the F-35, but in this respect there is no comparison. The choice of procurement process is guided by the operational requirements of the equipment being sought by the Canadian Forces.

The F-35 procurement is a unique situation because of our membership in a partnership of nations committed to acquiring a common next generation fighter for the 21st century. Experts within the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence have rigorously examined all available aircraft in terms of capability, cost and industrial opportunities, and this review concluded that the F-35 was the only aircraft that met all the Canadian Forces' mandatory capabilities for a next generation fighter.

In total, 10 countries have followed the same process and come to the same conclusion: the F-35. This is not a coincidence. As such, we have committed $9 billion to the acquisition of 65 F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighters, an amount that includes not only the cost of the aircraft, but all of the associated weapon systems, supporting infrastructure, initial spares, training simulators, contingency funds and project operating costs.

Canada is purchasing the most cost-effective variant of the aircraft at the peak of production when the costs are projected to be at their lowest. We currently estimate the cost per aircraft to be in the mid-$70 million U.S. range. In 2016 dollars, the unit cost of buying new F-35s is only slightly more than the unit cost paid for the CF-18s in the 1980s.

We expect the life cycle cost of the joint strike fighter to be similar to that of the CF-18 fleet, approximately $250 million to $350 million annually. Canada's cost for aircraft is not expected to change as a result of the extension of the development phase since the U.S. has been absorbing all of those costs so far.

DND continuously strives to capture lessons learned in undertaking complex acquisitions. Procurement of major military platforms is a complex process that evolves over time. Some who are now commenting have simply not kept up with that evolution.

We have taken a number of steps in recent years to improve and streamline the defence procurement process, allowing us to introduce and replace new capabilities faster than ever before, while also ensuring best value for money. As a matter of fact, we have reduced the implementation time to about half of what it was previously.

As always, the government continues to ensure that we procure the best equipment for our Canadian Forces so they can achieve mission success while ensuring that Canadian taxpayers get the best deal for their money.

[Taxation, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, today the Liberal Party confirmed it would raise taxes when it tabled an opposition day motion calling on the government to raise taxes on job-creating businesses. It is well known the opposition favours higher taxes and irresponsible spending.

Our government believes in keeping taxes low. Our low tax plan is creating jobs for families right across the country.

The Liberal leader has a history of supporting higher taxes. In 2004, he called himself a “tax and spend Liberal”. In 2006, he was the first Liberal to propose a job-killing carbon tax. In 2008, he said a GST hike was still on the table. In 2009, he said: “We will have to raise taxes”. In 2010, he said he will raise taxes on job creators and he even supports an iPod tax.

Canada does not need that risk. That is why we continue to fight to keep taxes low to help create jobs and strengthen the Canadian economy.

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, Liberals like to use weasel words to say that they are not talking about raising taxes. The corporate tax rate today is 16.5%. Liberals want the corporate tax rate to be 18%. Could my hon. colleague please comment on how that could possibly be seen as anything other than an increase in taxes and what effect that would have jobs for Canadians?

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to what both Liberal members said. One of them mentioned what the IMF said, which I think he misrepresented. This is what the IMF really said on December 22, 2010:

Canada has weathered well the global recession.... [And the government's] ambitious fiscal consolidation plans include growth-friendly measures to support Canada’s long-run economic potential, notably...cuts in corporate income tax.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why she and her party are so anxious to take away from 100,000 Canadian corporations the ability to create jobs and increase Canada's economic potential?

[February 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is not telling the truth about the price of the airplane. He is taking U.S. costs for U.S. aircraft. He is not talking about our program.

We are not writing a cheque for $16 billion tomorrow. We are spreading the $9 billion cost of the aircraft over seven years, a cost that includes simulators, infrastructure, training, and so on, a lot of which comes back to Canadian industry. Starting in 2015, the sustainment cost of the airplane will be spread over 20 years. We are not writing a cheque for $16 billion tomorrow: this is spread out over a very long period of time.

The simple fact is that we have had 10 highly advanced countries look at the same challenge and every single one has come up with the same answer: the F-35. That is not a coincidence.

We have experts here whom we should trust. These are the people with no agenda. Every company has an agenda. That is a given, and somebody will come to us and say they can do whatever. Of course they are going to say that. That is why we hire people with the expertise and the experience to give us the advice and the answer.

Back in the CF-18 days, the program I was involved in, we had the same people saying the same kinds of things. At least in those days the Liberals came to their senses and supported the program. I wish the Liberals today had the same common sense.

[February 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague 100%. We absolutely have to get the best aircraft for the best price for the Canadian men and women who will be put in harm's way for the next 30, 40 or 50 years. That is exactly what we are doing.

I want to thank him again for his question because it gives me a chance to clarify some of the misconceptions that have been put out there. The government is indeed committed to finding the best value for Canadian taxpayers' dollars in the case of our decision to purchase 65 F-35 Lightning II strike fighters. That is exactly what we are doing. We are following the most cost-effective option and it does follow Treasury Board guidelines. To say that it does not is just simply false.

Canada joined the multinational joint strike fighter partnership back in 1997 under the Liberals and conducted a competitive process to select what would become the JSF, the only fifth generation fighter aircraft available to Canada and the rest of the western world with the exception of the United States.

The whole point of the joint strike fighter program is to develop a cutting edge adaptable, sustainable, multi-role aircraft for the 21st century that permits full interoperability with our allies and friends, and benefits from economies of scale inherent in a project that foresees the production of nearly 5,000 aircraft over a 40-year span.

Indeed, experts from within the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces did conduct extensive evaluations of the leading fighter aircraft, analyzed data provided by industry, and through government-to-government channels, and undertook lengthy consultations with manufacturers.

Of course, someone will come before the defence committee to say that they can do that. However, they are not the ones making the decisions. The decisions and the advice needs to be taken from the experts who have extensive experience and expertise in this because they have no agenda other than to get the Canadian Forces the best aircraft possible at the best price.

The conclusion was that only the F-35 meets all the mandatory criteria in the statement of operational requirements and these experts then recommended to the government that it acquire the F-35 joint strike fighter. It is the government's confidence in the expertise and experience of these military and civilian officials and their recommendations that has led to its choice of a procurement process.

To hold a second competitive process to select Canada's next generation fighter, as critics have called for, would waste time and money, and needlessly delay the replacement of our aging fleet of CF-18s, which will reach the end of their service life by 2020.

However, more fundamentally, such a competition would be a farce as we cannot hold a competition when there is only one viable competitor. To persist in holding such a lopsided competition would be to select the very aircraft that we already know is the only one that meets the air force's requirements. We would lose our place in the production schedule and to lose out on the lucrative economic opportunities for Canadian industry contained within the industrial participation plans signed among the JSF partner nations and Lockheed Martin.

Purchasing the F-35 through a competitive bidding process with an attached industrial regional benefits package, as the opposition has been demanding, would mean purchasing the aircraft outside the joint strike fighter memorandum of understanding that Canada signed onto in 2006. We get special privileges inside that MOU, not the least of which allows us to purchase the F-35 without having to pay foreign military sales fees or research and development recoupment costs that are built into the price for non-partner nations, such as Israel. These cost waivers amount to savings of $850 million to $900 million off the purchase price of our 65 aircraft.

Not only that, but those industrial participation plans that permit Canadian companies to bid on contracts for the full F-35 global supply chain would be immediately suspended with a decision to hold a competition as these plans are conditional on Canada purchasing the F-35 through the MOU.

Canada's world-class aerospace companies have already won $350 million in contracts. That is even before full production has begun. Based on this success, estimates suggest that Canadian companies could win up to $12 billion in contracts for production, sustainment, and follow-on development of the F-35 over the 40-year duration of the project.

The Canadian industry rightly sees the long-term benefits of this novel procurement process. By participating in such huge international projects, the government can help to stimulate and strengthen Canadian aerospace and defence companies to bid on and win major contracts worldwide.

The choice facing this government in this process is a no-brainer: proceed with the purchase under the best process--

[Canadian Human Rights Act, February 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, some of the rationale that was given for not supporting the bill was the judgment by some experienced prosecutors that when an offence is particularized it can be more difficult to get a conviction under whatever the provision is.

I wonder if my colleague has a comment on that or if he could tell the House his position from the legal side, that making it too specific would actually make it more difficult to accomplish the aim, which everybody agrees on, and that is to eliminate discrimination at every chance we get.